1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates to dynamic adjustment of a video presentation such as one or more of field of the disclosure relates to apparatus, systems, methods and application for controlling one or more of the brightness, vibrancy, color temperature and/or color shift based upon at least an estimated age of the viewer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Human beings do not perceive color in a uniform way. Porkony et al., “Aging of the Human Lens”, Applied Optics, Vol. 26, No. 8, 15 Apr. 1987 (http://macboy.uchicago.edu/˜eye1/PDF%20files/Pokorny.et.al.%20lens.pdf) describe how the human eye lens increases in density as we get older, and because the lens thereby absorbs more strongly in the UV and short-wavelength region, this leads to less discrimination between blue and green colors. Other researchers such as Schieber, “Human Factors and Aging: Identifying and Compensating for Age-related Deficits in Sensory and Cognitive Function”, Heimstra Human Factors Laboratories, Department of Psychology, University of South Dakota, 415 E. Clark Street, Vermillion, S. Dak. 57069, Mar. 15, 2002 (FINAL DRAFT) (http://people.usd.edu/˜schieber/psyc423/pdf/human-factors.pdf), more recently, have attributed this “red shift” phenomenon to a greater loss of sensitivity of shorter wavelengths at photoreceptors (cones) in the retina.
Berman, “The Re-engineering of Lighting Photometry”, Energy and Environment Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley Calif. 94720, July 1995, LBNL-42327, L-213 (http://gaia.lbl.gov/btech/papers/42327.pdf) describes how perception of brightness, and thus smaller pupil size (leading to better resolution of contrast, depth of field and acuity) can be improved by increasing the color temperature of illumination. By color temperature what is meant is the temperature of an ideal black body that radiates light of a comparable hue.
Technologies currently exist to adjust the perception of color on a video display. One such example is produced by eeColor, St. Augustine Fla. (http://www.eecolor.com/). eeColor's technology works by using pixel “shaders” present in a graphics processing unit (GPU) to remap the colors being displayed. This remapping occurs for every image as it is displayed on the LCD monitor. eeColor's algorithms, presumably based upon look-up-tables or transformation matrices, increase the perceived vibrancy of an image. One way this may be achieved would be to map the red-green-blue (RGB) colors of each pixel into HSV (Hue Saturation Value), and then increase the S (Saturation) component by a nonlinear factor such that high saturation values are not increased much, if at all.
The effect to a user of an eeColor modified display is of an image with better vibrancy, but with no perceived change to brightness.
The eeColor technology suffers from several drawbacks. For video content which is intended for extended viewing such as video games, movies, casino style games (whether played on a pay-to-play (P2P) basis or for purely entertainment purposes), designers, post-processors and editors design the graphics for such extended view. Applying the eeColor solution may have a detrimental effect on the content by adjusting what has been finely tuned by experienced designers and editors. As stated above, this is particularly true for casino-style video games where a player may play for one or several hours. Further the adjustment does not take into account human eye perception performance as related to the viewer's age. However, an approach such as suggested by eeColor may have advantages if selectively deployed such as where there are multiple viewers or for short term viewing such as when a casino game in an “attract mode” showing graphic content to attract a player.
In a heretofore unrelated technology there has been developed technology for passively detecting biometric features of a human such as facial features and from that estimating the viewer's age. For example Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Am Wolfsmantel 33, 91058, Erlangen, Germany, has developed software named SHORE™ from which the age of a subject can be estimated based upon a captured image of the subject's face. This technology is touted as being able to estimate the age with a mean absolute error of 6.85 years.
In certain enterprises a user, customer or patron's age can be directly obtained. As but an example, in a casino enterprise, a player may enroll in a player loyalty program of the type described in Boushy, U.S. Pat. No. 7,419,427 issued Sep. 2, 2008 and titled “National Customer Recognition System and Method”, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference. Bally Gaming, Inc. d/b/a Bally Technologies manufactures, sells, installs and maintains such systems currently as its ACSC-CMS system. Enrollment in the loyalty program actively obtains the player's age though the application and enrollment process or by the player providing an identification document such as a driver's license providing a date of birth from which the player's current age can be determined. Other “active” enrollment processes which obtain age data are credit card applications, and other loyalty programs such as airline frequent flyer programs. These programs and facilities result in a database storing user/player data including data indicative of the user/player's age which can be accessed.
In one aspect there is a need for video displays and graphic and video processing units to be able to, based upon a viewer's or user's age to adjust certain video perceptions as viewed by the user to account for the aforesaid typical “red shift” for older people to better present the content to the user. In this regard there is a need to be able to obtain age data for the viewer, either passively of actively.
There is a need in such an approach to provide one or more default settings which can be applied where age cannot be determined or in other instances such as an advertising or attract mode.
There is a need to provide such solutions not only in the casino and on-line gaming environment but in other environments where graphic and video content is presented particularly over extended periods of time or where there is a desire to adjust the presentation brightness, vibrancy, color temperature and/or color shift based upon the viewer's age.
There is a need to provide video displays and graphic and video processing units to be able to, based upon one or more of a viewer's or user's age or viewer's age associated with the content demographic to adjust certain video perceptions as viewed by the user to account for the aforesaid typical “red shift” for older people to better present the content to the user.